[forgotpwtomain]

Somehow despite all the conversations around education in the US the education system still sucks. I went to one of the highest funded (amount spent per child) public schools in my state, and as far as I am aware it was far behind in terms of curriculum strength compared to what my parents were taught in the Soviet Union at the same age.

I mean we didn't read a classic American author till 6th or 7th grade! And if I recall correctly there were still M&M's in math class in grade 4!

The US may have an education problem but somehow the Soviet Union and China did fine years ago with out all the ed-tech snake oil.

[bluGill]

> in the US the education system still sucks

citation?

Education is a complex matter. There are many people with OPINIONS on what the best way to teach is. These ideas are in conflict and only rarely does anyone study what really works. (rarely compared to the number of opinions - there could be a lot of studies that nobody knows about when they state their opinion)

Humans have a limited lifetime: you cannot teach all possible useful knowledge/skills in a lifetime. I limited this to useful, there is a lot of useless things that are fun to know anyway, somehow those are are interested need time to learn it for fun. I didn't define useful either: is Music/French/Algebra/Sports... useful (I can make either argument for any subject)

Why is reading a classic American author important? Reading is important in an abstract sense, but if you can understand written instructions it doesn't matter what you happened to read to get that skill.

Likewise, what is wrong with using M&Ms for learning math? a concrete example helps to learn. (to be clear, this is an opinion that I was ranting against in the first paragraph - I don't know if I agree with the opinion but I understand it enough to repeat it)

One constant in the US in popular culture is our education system sucks compared to X. We have done well over the years despite that (or maybe because of it?)

[forgotpwtomain]

> citation?

http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-mat...

> I didn't define useful either:

> but if you can understand written instructions it doesn't matter what you happened to read to get that skill.

Of course you are free to define useful in a way that makes it impossible to argue or to have a discussion. So let's stick to the way it is defined for the purpose of say University admission.

> Why is reading a classic American author important?

Reading difficult work earlier develops higher reading comprehension faster.

> Likewise, what is wrong with using M&Ms for learning math?

I think if by 4th grade you still need concrete pieces to understand integers or denominators of a fraction or whatever they were supposed to represent, that is a sign of a weak math education. In general concrete examples are antithetical to learning advanced math, this leads do the monkey-style ability to solve problems that are similar ones presented in textbooks, but not the ability to reason effectively about an unfamiliar problems.

[rb808]

I dont think PISA ratings are that useful, but it does show USA ahead of Russia and China for Reading and ahead of Russia for Science so hardly evidence that USA is worse.

[bluGill]

> Reading difficult work earlier develops higher reading comprehension faster.

What makes a classic American author better than a modern author who writes at a high level? (Note that most popular authors don't write at a difficult enough level, but out of the thousands of books published each year some will be high enough - many authors of old did not write at a high enough level either)

[slaman]

Classics are classics for a reason, they've stood the stand of time and scrutiny as literature of value.

Reading level of the material aside, I think it's more valuable to read The Catcher in the Rye than The Hunger Games because of the subject matter and impact on popular culture.

Classic literature is genre defining and gives you appreciation for the art of novelization.

It's hard to gain an initial appreciation for reading if you don't enjoy the reading you do, which is a good argument for the bestseller list, but it's hard to gain any depth of appreciation without understanding it's roots.

You might say you like hip-hop because lil-yachty made your head bounce on the radio, but without listening to N.W.A. you can't really say you understand it.

[robotresearcher]

> We have done well over the years despite that (or maybe because of it?)

It helps that your graduate schools and corporations are full of people educated in other countries. Immigration is great.

[pc86]

> I went to the highest funded (amount spent per child) public school in my state, and as far as I am aware it was far behind in terms of curriculum strength compared to what my parents were taught in the Soviet Union at the same age.

This is because just pumping money into failing schools does not magically turn them around. There is little correlation between per capita secondary education spending and student outcomes.

[closeparen]

All else being equal, schools with substantial numbers of special needs students will have much higher expenditure per pupil because they are so disproportionately expensive.

Of course funding per pupil isn't correlated to outcomes. Funding per pupil normalized to their levels of needs and preparedness might be.

[noonespecial]

Funding works strangely in USA public education. Schools in any given district seem to have a "hull speed" when it comes to money.

Once a certain amount of dollars are actually reaching the class room, adding more dollars will simply see most of the additional funds absorbed by hiring more administrators, prestige projects like sports facilities, "classroom technology" projects etc.

To detect this limit, simply check the level at which teachers begin paying for school supplies for their students from their own pockets and then back it off about 10%.

[tome]

> check the level at which teachers begin paying for school supplies for their students from their own pockets and then back it off about 10%.

Surely "add on about 10%"?

[noonespecial]

You don't know many teachers. The system consumes a little bit of teacher's altruism as a raw material, converting it to extra money for those other things mentioned. Too much and turnover becomes too high so they seem to carefully feel out to edge. You can shear sheep over and over but skin them only once.

Every public school teacher I've ever known (including the several in my family), from rich districts to poor, end up buying basic supplys for their students because they can't get the district to provide them. Its all very 20th century soviet. I've know teachers who waited six months for light bulbs before finally going to Home Depot and buying them themselves.

[15thandwhatever]

It tends to be a negative correlation.

In the Northeast US, you'll generally see the best performing districts have a lower amount spent per child than the underperforming districts.

The underperforming districts will have higher property taxes (as a result of the higher education cost). This generally leads to parents seeking to move to a different school district for financial and educational reasons.

In education, at least, more money does not equate to better students, but instead, more mismanagement.

[forgotpwtomain]

> It tends to be a negative correlation.

This definitely needs a citation. It might not have significant correlation either way, but I cannot find a reference for the former (some cursory googling [0][1]).

[0] https://www1.udel.edu/johnmack/research/school_funding.pdf [1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa746....

[douche]

Special education students are more expensive to educate than bright students.

You give a gifted student a $100 book and let them get after it.

You give a troubled behavior student with multiple LDs a full-time ed tech at $30k per year salary minimum, or whatever else is required, by federal law, to fulfill their IEPs.

[15thandwhatever]

Ugh, I didn't stop to consider the special education component (and its cost). That's my bad.

This reminds me of a similar theory in regards to affluent towns with low taxes that have minimal social programs, that "export" their elderly to nearby cities with higher taxes but have programs such as Paratransit and Meals-on-Wheels.

[cafard]

I question whether students are ready to read classic authors before middle school at the earliest. Perhaps one can read Huckleberry Finn as an adventure story before that, but is that more than surface familiarity? Don't know about M&Ms, though.

Anyway, as I say again and again: there isn't one US education system. Within the District of Columbia, a populous but geographically small area, there are practically if not legally speaking six or seven at least: public schools, magnet; public schools prosperous; public schools shaky to desperate; parochial schools; private schools; charter schools. And within the parochial, private, and charter school worlds there are considerable differences.

[rb808]

I see a lot of Russians and Chinese emigrate to America to bring up their children. I dont see any sending their children back to get the "superior" education there.